THE FLIGHT OF THE EAGLE 215 
nay, behind every page that is the main purport, 
— to outline a New World Man and a New World 
Woman, modern, complete, democratic, not only 
fully and nobly intellectual and spiritual, but in the 
same measure physical, emotional, and even fully 
and nobly carnal. 
An acute person once said to me, ‘‘ As I read and 
re-read these poems, I more and more think their 
inevitable result in time must be to produce 
‘A race of splendid and savage old men,’ 
of course dominated by moral and spiritual laws, 
but with volcanoes of force always alive beneath the 
surface.” 
And still again: One of the questions to be put 
to any poem assuming a first-class importance among 
us—and I especially invite this inquiry toward 
‘““Leaves of Grass ” —is, How far is this work con- 
sistent with, and the outcome of, that something 
which secures to the race ascendency, empire, and 
perpetuity? There is in every dominant people a 
germ, a quality, an expansive force, that, no matter 
how it is overlaid, gives them their push and their 
hold upon existence, — writes their history upon the 
earth, and stamps their imprint upon the age. To 
what extent is your masterpiece the standard-bearer 
of this quality,— helping the race to victory? help- 
ing me to be more myself than I otherwise would? 
III 
Not the least of my poet’s successes is in his 
thorough assimilation of the modern sciences, trans 
